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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22599910">sleep with your eyes open</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/enaxii/pseuds/enaxii'>enaxii</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Cytus (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blood, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mental Instability, Unreliable Narrator, minor spoilers for 2.7/2.8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 14:54:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,658</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22599910</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/enaxii/pseuds/enaxii</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Neko (can feel someone wrapping their hands around her throat, a quiet puff of air against her ear. <i>I won’t kill you</i>, says the mystery person, <i>if you tell me what I want to hear</i>, and she) bites off a bitter reply because <i>everything is wrong</i> and instead reiterates that she’s fine.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Implied Background Relationships - Relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>sleep with your eyes open</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It starts, first, with Neko breaking her cup.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She flings it clear cross the room, and it shatters on the opposite wall, raining porcelain crystals onto the floor. Aroma is unpleasantly jolted out of her meditation, and both she and Neko stare at what used to be the cup but is now shards on the floor. Some seem to have even embedded themselves into the wall.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Um, Neko…?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aroma turns slowly to look at Neko, whose face is pale and lips drawn tight. It’s a distinctly un-Neko face, and Aroma instinctively holds her breath as she watches. Neko is frozen in place, unmoving, almost like she’s caught between the threads of time itself, but then she shakes her head, blinks once, blinks twice, and then hastily plasters a smile back on her face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah, sorry about that, Aroma-chan! Neko accidentally knocked into her cup, that’s all!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then she leaps to her feet and bustles out of the room to wrestle a dustpan from whichever unlucky Kyuu Hou Kai member she finds first. Nevermind the fact that it’s impossible to accidentally “knock” a cup across a room with such force that it shatters into near-dust, nevermind the fact that Neko looked so shaken right after she had </span>
  <em>
    <span>thrown</span>
  </em>
  <span> the cup — Neko is fine. She tells the concerned Aroma as much when she returns, and when Aroma still looks worried, proceeds to tell her to </span>
  <em>
    <span>knock it off, Neko isn’t a damsel in distress, she can take care of herself</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and so what if she’s a bit snappy when she says that? She’s just annoyed that she broke her favourite cup.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aroma finally lets up and goes back to meditating, trying to find her inner peace and preparing herself to go back into the OS space or whatever strange thing she’s doing, and Neko just busies herself with sweeping up the remains of her cup. Her hands are shaking so much that she almost drops the broom twice, but it’s nothing. Neko is just tired. That’s all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(If she tries hard enough, Neko can almost see the porcelain dust like concrete dust, swirling thickly in the air. The buildings are devastated, crumbling and pockmarked with holes. In the distance, she can hear the cries of a child, sobbing as planes soared overhead and sirens blared static like bits of eerie song.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If she tries hard enough, Neko can almost hear the gunshots that tremble the earth, almost hear the abrupt way the child stops crying.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko shakes her head, runs a hand through her hair, closes her eyes and counts to ten. When she opens her eyes again, it’s just to the sight of a pile of broken shards in the dustpan.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She never mentions that anyone, not even Aroma, and they never speak of this incident again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Until it happens, again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This time, Neko is playing her video games. She’s not streaming, just taking some time off for herself and letting herself enjoy the game without the need for constant commentary. She’s gunning down some enemies, emptying bullets into the (bandit that’s in front of her, because it’s either the bandit or it’s her, and she sure as hell isn’t going to die tonight. Blood spurts through the air where she manages to hit the bandit in the side of his neck, tearing through an artery, and the bandit chokes, spitting up blood and crumples at her feet) and she gains some experience points with her kill. It’s enough to level up, and she has to pick a powerup (and she robs the bandit’s body of everything he had, even the very clothes he’s wearing, because it’s either the bandit or it’s her, but then as she’s packing everything back into her bag, she hears the shift of the sands behind her. She twists around, gun in hand, but it’s too late and there’s a knife sticking out of her che-)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko blinks. The game over screen flashes sadly on her console screen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her hand had stilled, and in the time that she wasn’t attacking, the AI enemies had taken the liberty of pressing forward and absolutely destroying her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Normally, she would rage at the enemies, yell some choice swear words in the general direction of the game creators, then angrily restart, but for some reason, her hand is- her hand is shaking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko puts her controller down on her table, holding her hands out in front of her. They’re trembling noticeably and no matter what she does, she can’t get them to stop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(She can almost see the blood that stains her hands, crusted under her fingernails, burned deep into her palms.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko closes her eyes and counts to ten.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she opens her eyes again, her hands have stilled somewhat, but she decides that that’s enough video games for the day. For whatever reason, the thought of shooting down mindless soldiers makes her feel sick to her stomach and makes her chest </span>
  <em>
    <span>burn</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead, she leaves her room, leaves the blinking </span>
  <em>
    <span>game over</span>
  </em>
  <span> screen, and heads to the canteen of the headquarters.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(From the corner of her eye, she can see someone following her, just waiting to stab another knife into her chest.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But. But, when she reaches the canteen, footsteps silent, she sees Aroma and Hayato, huddled around a table. They’re whispering something to each other, humming quick snatches of songs, and when Hayato says something into her ear, Aroma (Kaori?) throws back her head and laughs, a clear, crystal sound. They look so </span>
  <em>
    <span>happy</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Back in Node 8, Aroma never looked this carefree, plagued as she was with nightmares and memories that didn’t even </span>
  <em>
    <span>belong</span>
  </em>
  <span> to her. Neko could never make her laugh like Hayato seems to be able to so easily. Even now, with- with </span>
  <em>
    <span>someone</span>
  </em>
  <span> they know </span>
  <em>
    <span>dead</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Aroma is still able to laugh so freely.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And it’s all because of Hayato.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko’s chest burns, burns and burns and </span>
  <em>
    <span>burns</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and she turns around and runs back to her room, leaving Kaori and Hayato behind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(Her shadows laugh, laugh and laugh and </span>
  <em>
    <span>laugh and</span>
  </em>
  <span>)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After that, Neko avoids the canteen. She takes her food back to her room, ignores Kaori’s invitations to sit with them during lunch, ignores Hayato’s stares, ignores Robo-head’s inquisitive quips, and just. Goes to her room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even then, her mouth tastes like dust, her throat as dry as a desert, and her stomach churning with uneasy waves. Her hands still shake, so much that she spills soup all over the table. After she cleans up the spill, Neko throws her lunch into the bin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>(It’s hard to eat when all she can see is a sea of mangled bodies, left behind as they trampled on each other in their panic to get to the bomb shelters. Not that it mattered, because the bomb shelters collapsed, anyway. And now, under the harsh sunlight, there are millions of flies that are flocking to a feast, and the smell of rotting bodies-)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko throws up into the bin, retching bile and tears and dust and blood and-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They only become more frequent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(Sometimes, when Neko is alone in her room, she can see the walls of her room cracking, and she huddles on her bed, shaking as she watches the walls shake with bombs. She can see someone hiding behind the wall, drawing a finger across his throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Keep quiet.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko nods, and the person continues to stare at her through the cracks in the wall.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kaori, and the rest, begin to notice that Neko has become more withdrawn, more frequently choosing to stay in her room than hang out with everyone else. When Kaori confronts Neko about this, her voice concerned but firm, Neko brushes her off, tells her that it’s just the shock of Cherry’s death, she’s just stressed, and </span>
  <em>
    <span>she’s fine, god damn it, stop bothering her!</span>
  </em>
  <span> Neko slams the door in Kaori’s face, and she’s shaking. It’s not just her hands, but her entire body trembles. Her legs give way and she sinks to the floor with a quiet thump, burying her head in her hands. She can feel goosebumps rising on her bare arms, her heart beating fast and furious in a hollow chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(Behind Kaori, she saw the dead bandit from not-so-long-ago, grinning with bloody teeth and empty eye sockets. Bits of sinew and flesh hung out of where her bullet had blown out half of his neck, and when she blinked, maggots began to crawl out of the empty spaces.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>To no one’s surprise, Neko wakes up from where she was slumped by the door to someone pounding on her door. She wasn’t even aware she had fallen asleep until she jolted awake to someone trying to take her door off its hinges, and Neko cracks the door open before that objective can be accomplished.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s Kaori, again, but this time Hayato and Robo-head are behind her. Hayato looks very harassed and completely avoids Neko’s eyes, and Robo-head is as smiley as ever, but Kaori’s face is set in a frown, determination burning in her eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re coming in,” she announces, one hand on her hips, no room for debate in her voice. Neko, bleary with sleep (and disorientated by the nuclear bomb going off behind her door,) lets them in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kaori sets up camp on Neko’s bed, the sheets still ruffled from this morning, placing herself delicately on the edge of Neko’s bed. Hayato cautiously lowers himself onto Neko’s gaming chair and Robo-head stands completely straight beside her desk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everyone turns to look at Kaori.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neko, I’ve noticed that you’ve been staying in your room a lot, recently. Is something wrong?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko (can feel someone wrapping their hands around her throat, a quiet puff of air against her ear. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I won’t kill you</span>
  </em>
  <span>, says the mystery person, </span>
  <em>
    <span>if you tell me what I want to hear</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and she) bites off a bitter reply because </span>
  <em>
    <span>everything is wrong</span>
  </em>
  <span> and instead reiterates that she’s fine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The crease between Kaori’s eyebrows deepens, and she’s about to speak when Hayato slams his hand down on the table. Neko’s pen holder tips over, spilling pens over her table.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neko, you’re being incredibly selfish!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hayato’s face is stormy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re not the only person who has lost someone! I lost Kaori for so many years, she could have been </span>
  <em>
    <span>dead</span>
  </em>
  <span> for all I knew, but I wasn’t sulking, bringing down morale! I worked hard to find her, but you’re just snivelling in your room and being an attention-seeking crybaby! If you can’t get over yourself, then you might as well just leave, because no one wants you here anyway-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hayato!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In an instant, Kaori is across the room and her hand across Hayato’s mouth, effectively muffling him. Hayato doesn’t say anything else, but his eyes gleam with </span>
  <em>
    <span>hatred</span>
  </em>
  <span> and to her mortification, Neko can feel (the hands tightening on her neck, squeezing the breath out of her and) her eyes beginning to sting. She can’t cry now, not in front of Aroma, not in front of everyone, (not in front of the ghosts that peer at her through the cracks in the wall), and so Neko flees the room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t know how long she runs, how far she runs, but (she sees ghosts that line the sidewalks, jeering laughter as they all fall down, crumbling into bones and blood, but) when she comes back to herself again, Neko finds herself in front of the playground she used to frequent when she was a child. It’s deserted, now, the swings creaking in the wind, dirt and dust covering the slide in a thick layer, unused and frozen in time. The buildings around the playground have been abandoned, like dead corpses left to rot.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko breathes: in, out, in, out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sandpit is overrun with grass, but there are small dandelions poking out amongst the weeds, delicate little things. Neko kneels down, ignoring the gritty sand that digs into her knees, and cups her hands around one of the flowers. It almost seems to shiver, before the gentle wind blows and the dandelion dissolves in her hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For the first time in so many days, the voices that have haunted her seems to have finally quietened. The wind whispers past her bare arms and Neko shivers, closing her eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko breathes: in, out, in, out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you alright?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko doesn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>jump</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but she does whip around, turning fast enough that her head spins.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then her head really begins to spin, because blinking up at her is someone she recognises.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Herself.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko doesn’t say anything, just stares at the younger version of herself, smiling innocently up at her. Slowly, the smile becomes a small frown.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know, it’s not nice to stare.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko shakes her head, digs the heel of her palm into her eyes, but when she opens her eyes again, the smaller Neko is still there, looking significantly more annoyed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neko becomes quite a mess, don’t we?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko doesn’t respond, and the smaller Neko sighs and squats down next to her by the sandpit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So, what did you mess up this time, Neko?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And Neko cries. She cries, and sobs, and screams, snivelling like the pitiful thing she is. In between her tears, she tells herself about Kaori, about Hayato, about Cherry, about Xenon, and ironically, even about the visions she seems to keep having and </span>
  <em>
    <span>can’t seem to stop</span>
  </em>
  <span>. The smaller Neko doesn’t say anything, just squats beside her and stares into the sandpit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Neko’s tears have died down somewhat and her voice is hoarse from speaking, the smaller Neko only pauses, before saying bluntly: “I think you’re overreacting.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko doesn’t question it. She just nods, feeling drained and empty, her chest hurting and her mind blank. The smaller Neko nods back at her, and she smiles, again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t tell anyone about this. They’ll think you’re crazy, and then they’ll lock you away.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko closes her eyes. When she opens them again, the playground is empty and her nose is bleeding.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(She can hear the echoes of childish laughter.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She takes a moment to gather herself, then pulls herself to her feet and sets course back to the headquarters. It wasn’t exactly early when Neko left, and with how long she had spent in the playground, the skies are already becoming dark. It might have been a while since she was last in Node 3, but even she still remembers not to stay out too late.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Neko returns to her room, the skies have become a fiery red, casting bloody streaks across the heavens. She finds her room vacated, any traces of Hayato and Kaori and Robo-head erased. She wonders if they even came into her room at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko lies underneath her covers, but she does not sleep. Instead, she dreams.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(She dreams of children playing in playgrounds before suddenly the playground is gone, blown to smithereens, the sound of children’s laughter still echoing, echoing, echoing, along with the shrill whine of an incoming bomb.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She dreams of dark corridors and cramped cells, children and adults alike squeezed together as tightly as they could fit them, and of surgical tables, bloody needles, doctors with beaks for faces and a permanent smile on their face, like an eerie imitation of a human, like a doll.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She dreams and dreams and dreams until she doesn’t)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>dream at all, and Neko wakes up not with a start, but with a feeling of emptiness. She feels like she’s floating, but like she’s at the bottom of the sea at the same time, weighed down on her shoulders by nothingness and shattered hopes like shards of porcelain. Neko sits up on her bed, draws her knees to her chest, and doesn’t sleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next morning, there’s someone knocking at her door again, but this time the sound is hesitant, timid. Neko stares at the door, blinks, and suddenly she’s in front of it, a hand gripped on the handle. She pushes the door open, just a little.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s just Kaori on the other side this time, and she looks nervous.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Um, Neko… About yesterday, I really want to apologise for what Hayato said. He didn’t mean any of it, he’s just been under a lot of stress lately-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko cuts Kaori off, with a vague smile and glassy eyes. She feels like a helium balloon weighed down by a stone, about to fly away but infuriatingly, still grounded to the earth. Kaori feels so far away now, and the knife sticking out of the back of her head must hurt, but Kaori doesn’t seem to notice it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No! It’s not fine, what Hayato said was uncalled for, and-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko reaches out and grabs onto one of Kaori’s hands that are flailing about in her distress. Kaori’s hand feels too warm, almost hot, or maybe Neko’s hands are just cold, but they aren’t shaking anymore and that’s all that matters. She looks Kaori in the eye, and says:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s fine, Kaori. Neko is fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then she says:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hayato’s right, anyway. Neko has just been sitting around doing nothing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then she says:</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please, don’t bother with Neko. I… I want you to be happy, Kaori, and you should be by Hayato’s side.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kaori gapes at her, for just a moment, and Neko lets go of Kaori’s hand. She feels the strings of the balloon loosen, just a little, and closes the door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She returns to her bed and doesn’t dream and doesn’t sleep.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(Instead: she feels.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She feels the skin peeling from her body as she’s caught in a firestorm, and she should be screaming.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She feels herself getting peppered with bullets, tearing through her arms and head and her chest and her legs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She feels herself getting buried alive under a building brought down by a missile, the concrete crushing her ribs and the steel beams grinding her legs into dust.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko stays in her room for just one more day, stares at every crack in her wall and counts every dead body that appears under her bed, then she smiles, stands up and leaves her room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The moment she enters the canteen, conversation stutters to a halt. Neko ignores them, grabs whatever tasteless junk is on the menu for the day, and joins Kaori’s table. Hayato regards her warily, but then Neko cracks a joke about how </span>
  <em>
    <span>everyone loves her because everyone’s looking at Neko like a goddess, it’s about time you all peasants realised</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Hayato rolls his eyes and the tense atmosphere leaks out like a balloon with holes. Neko pokes at her food, doesn’t remember eating it, and doesn’t remember the conversation at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(Instead: what she </span>
  <em>
    <span>does</span>
  </em>
  <span> remember.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her stomach growling as she stumbles through the desert, the blistering heat leaving her parched and dry, her vision blurring. Her head pounds and spins, the soft sands tripping up her feet, and her body feels like it’s burning, but at least she’s not sweating so there’s nothing to wipe away.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko doesn’t remember much, really. She drifts in and out, opens doors and closes doors, lets go of a balloon. Robo-head might have come into her room the other day and stayed there while he composed a new song, or maybe the floor in her room had given way and Neko had fallen in but was thankfully found and pulled out in time, or maybe Kaori had taken Neko out to a club and they danced all night, or maybe nothing happened at all and now, was actually a few days ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t care, really. There are eyes staring at her through the cracks in her walls, and she wonders how no one has noticed them yet. The cracks are big enough that surely, the building must be unsafe. But no one points them out, so neither does Neko. Maybe that’s why the floor collapsed the other day, or hadn’t at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The eerie song of broken sirens is becoming a constant in her life, and at least that’s one thing that never changes. Neko wonders how many sirens are installed around the Node because she can hear it no matter where she goes. She wonders why no one’s fixed it yet, but the tune is stuck in her head and she doesn’t know what she would do if it suddenly disappears.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko doesn’t sleep anymore, or at least she doesn’t think she does. She doesn’t, she doesn’t, she doesn’t, she doesn’t do a lot of things, but instead, she likes to listen to sirens and play with knives that slice her fingers into neat little pieces. Once, Neko asked Nora if she could hear the sirens, too. Nora raised an eyebrow and sincerely asked if she needed to get her ears checked, then followed it up with </span>
  <em>
    <span>I think you’re a waste of space</span>
  </em>
  <span> so Neko doesn’t ask again. Of course, right after that, Nora disappears, and Neko is told that Nora is in her lab, and Neko wonders how Nora got from her room to her lab so fast. In fact, she wonders how Nora got into her room at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko’s favourite colour is pink. She really likes cats. Pink, she decides, is very close to red. She sees the colour red a lot, so she must like it quite a bit. Her meowbots lay unmoving on her table, but she doesn’t understand </span>
  <em>
    <span>why</span>
  </em>
  <span>. She fed them and gave them water and everything. That’s how a living thing survives, right?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s quite sure that’s how a living thing survives. When she was making another trip across the desert, she gave the small sack food and water, too, and it started dancing with joy. Neko is quite certain that it was alive. It even sang the same songs as the sirens.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko isn’t sure what to do with their corpses, so she just paints them pink and leaves them in the corner of the room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(“Neko… What are you doing?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko’s fingers are coated in paint, along with half her face and most of her table. There’s a sparking meowbot in front of her, and it’s covered in swirls of pink paint.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Huh? Can’t you see? I’m giving it a funeral!”)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the end, she decides to grind them to dust and eat them. Neko’s heard, somewhere, that ground-up mummies had health benefits, and she’s not even sure what a </span>
  <em>
    <span>mummy</span>
  </em>
  <span> is, but she doesn’t know a lot of things. Or, well, she didn’t use to know a lot of things. She knows a lot of things now, and one of them is that powdered mummies have a lot of health benefits. Neko grinds them up to dust and eats every single one of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(Later, she retches into the toilet, bile burning her throat, and it almost feels like euphoria.)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The other day, Hayato stops by her room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You should jump off the roof,” he says. It’s a bit of a sudden request, but it makes sense. </span>
  <em>
    <span>But Neko can’t fly</span>
  </em>
  <span>, she explains. </span>
  <em>
    <span>The rock is still tied to the balloon, she would fall to the ground.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Hayato gets angry and he starts smashing the walls of the room, which honestly isn’t that hard to do considering how ridden with cracks its become.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(“Hayato went with Kaori to visit someone’s grave, Neko. They haven’t been in the headquarters for the past day.”)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm? Oh, Hayato must know how to fly then… Neko’s kind of jealous.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It makes sense that Hayato knows how to fly. That must be why he’s trying to push Neko off the roof, because he also wants Neko to know how to fly. It’s very kind of him, like a mother bird pushing a baby bird out of the nest to force it to learn how to fly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead, though, she falls through the floor and lands in her bed. Neko decides to pass her time by watching the dismembered limbs crawl towards her bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(“Something is wrong with Neko.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you think I don’t know that? It’s almost like she’s gone insane.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you think Xenon would be able to do something about it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Xenon doesn’t even want to come out of his room.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We have to try!”)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko’s getting tired of bandits knocking on her door. The last one stabbed four knives into her arm before she could close the door. This time, though, the bandit is blonde. And he looks terrible.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neko.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko smiles because that’s her name! She’s pretty sure she really likes cats.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You look hideous,” she says while smiling. The bandit frowns and looks more terrible than ever. But he also looks a little familiar.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do I know you from somewhere?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(“She didn’t recognise me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did she hit her head? How did she suddenly forget about you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Something’s wrong. We have to tell Nora.”)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The blonde bandit comes back. He doesn’t stab any knives into her body, and Neko tells him that she’s grateful for that. The bandit asks her about a fruit, which is strange, because she hasn’t had fruit in hundreds of years. She remembers that the fruit is red, though, and tells him that she likes its colour. Then he asks her about a type of wine, and she’s becoming kind of cross because what kind of stupid questions are those?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(“Neko doesn’t remember Sherry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s happening to her?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nora?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have a suspicion about what it could be and I’ll have to run some tests to be certain, but I truly hope that I’m wrong. I’ll need a sample of her blood.”)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>PAFF is at the door, this time. Neko is very happy to see her because the last time she saw her she was stabbing the smaller Neko to death. Neko helped hide the body, of course, and told PAFF that eating mummies is very healthy. PAFF nodded like she was considering it, but then she walked into the hole in the floor and Neko never saw her again. Obviously, PAFF didn’t die because she was right there, so PAFF must be able to fly, too. Honestly, Neko is glad that PAFF is back. The smaller Neko’s body is beginning to smell. At this rate, there wouldn’t be anything left to eat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>PAFF asks for a bit of her blood. Neko wonders if her blood tastes good.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(“Kaori? Are you alright? You look really pale…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She asked me when I was going to eat the body.”)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The wheelchair visits her, sometimes. It tells Neko to sleep, and she does.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>(“It’s just as I feared. It’s… the virus.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The Ender virus?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She must have somehow got in contact with it… And similar to you and me, she developed a version of ‘the Eye of Horus’, but… something went wrong.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She went insane.”)</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neko sleeps, but sometimes, she wakes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she wakes, she sees Aroma slumped in the chair beside the bed. Or she sees Simon, gripping her hand, head bowed in sleep but his face contorted with a frown even in his rest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once, she wakes, and Hayato is there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hayato?” Neko’s voice is rough, and she barely manages a word before she erupts into a coughing fit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neko? You… you recognise me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hayato’s eyes are wide, and he looks about ready to flee the room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a gentle beeping of a machine beside her. Neko thinks of sirens and doesn’t know why.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s going on? Why am I here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hayato presses a button on the wall, and he grabs onto her hand so tightly that it hurts. Then again, her entire body hurts, aches with sores and her head pounds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please, don’t fall asleep.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He seems to almost be in tears as he says this, and there’s so much guilt in his eyes. Neko wants to tell him that she’s fine, but Hayato is sounding further and further away, like the last bit of string has unravelled around the stone and the balloon is floating away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neko! Neko, please, stay with me!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And finally, Neko is flying.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>yell at me in the comments</p></blockquote></div></div>
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